Missing out: Peshawar stays out of crucial countrywide polio campaign

The Express Tribune

By Iftikhar Firdous

Although it is at the heart of a polio epidemic, Peshawar district could not be a part of a highly-crucial countrywide three-day emergency immunisation drive because of a range of issues, sources privy to the matter told The Express Tribune. The drive was supposed to be conducted in 76 districts across Pakistan after the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) criticised the country’s immunisation programme and a high-level meeting led by the prime minister renewed its pledge to eradicate polio.

Although the IMB report made a special reference to commencing the polio campaign in the high-risk Peshawar district, children in the provincial capital and its surroundings remained unvaccinated in the absence of a drive.

When contacted, Peshawar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Zaheerul Islam said the main reason was security. “We have to mobilise a force for the protection of vaccinators and since the forces deployed for Muharram duty had just returned they could not be assembled for this particular campaign,” he said.

However, he added there were other reasons too. “While polio campaigns in the rest of the country are three days long, in Peshawar they are one day long only,” he said, adding Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has its own dynamic.

According to an insider, Peshawar could not be a part of the campaign because of delayed payments to health workers who had participated in earlier drives. Without giving any further details, he said the payments are yet to be made by a “friendly country.” Around 755,000 children have been left unvaccinated due to Peshawar missing out on the campaign, said a senior official associated with the polio eradication programme.

He added a major cause for concern was internally displaced children from Khyber Agency who have recently entered Peshawar and its adjacent areas and are unvaccinated.

Putting the blame on lack of coordination between Unicef and the health departments, the official said the current strain of the poliovirus found in Peshawar is genetically linked to Khyber Agency.

A total of 238 polio cases have been reported so far this year, of these 153 are from Fata, 48 from K-P, followed by 24 from Sindh, 10 from Balochistan and three from Punjab.

The K-P government’s successful Sehat ka Insaf immunisation drive was replicated in the three-day-long countrywide campaign, but health experts believe the campaign will have to continue till not a single child is left unvaccinated.

Since a majority of this year’s cases have been reported from Khyber Agency i.e. 55, an immunisation drive in Peshawar is necessary so that the agency’s left out children are vaccinated. “There is no other solution but to vaccinate till the virus is eradicated,” said the polio official.